Grammar
The rules of agreement, pronoun case, verb form, modification, and sentence construction, each stated as a ruling with examples.
Agreement
- agenda: singular, plural, and agreement
- agreement by proximity
- agreement with compound subjects
- agreement with fractions and percentages
- agreement with titles and quoted words
- along with / together with
- anybody / anyone: agreement
- as well as: agreement
- collective nouns: agreement
- criterion / criteria: number and agreement
- data / datum / data point
- each / every / each and every
- either: number and agreement
- either . . . or: agreement
- half of: agreement
- kudos is
- media / medium
- neither . . . nor: agreement
- none is / none are
- number of / the number of
- one of those who
- percent: agreement
- pronoun agreement with indefinite pronouns
- series: singular or plural
- species: singular or plural
- subject-verb agreement
- there is / there are
- verb agreement with inverted sentences
- verb agreement with measurements and amounts
- what-clause: agreement
Pronouns
- between you and I
- case in compound and coordinated pronouns
- each other / one another
- expletive it / anticipatory it
- I / me / myself
- intensive pronouns / reflexive pronouns
- it is I / it is me
- joint subjects and pronoun case
- myself as polite subject
- one . . . one’s
- pronoun case after than / as
- pronoun case in appositives
- pronoun reference ambiguity
- pronoun shift in person or number
- that / which
- thou / you: historical use
- where / that / in which in relative clauses
- who vs. that for people
- who / whom
- whoever / whomever
- whose for things
- you and I / you and me
Verbs and Verb Forms
- abide / abided / abode
- active voice / passive voice
- auxiliary verbs / helping verbs
- awake / awaken / wake / waken
- bare infinitive
- bit / bitten
- boughten
- broadcast / broadcasted
- burned / burnt
- can / may
- conditional sentences
- could of / could have
- dive / dived / dove
- drank / drunk
- dreamed / dreamt
- drunk / drunken
- fit / fitted
- forecast / forecasted
- gerund and infinitive
- gerund / present participle
- got / gotten
- graduate: transitive and prepositional use
- grow as transitive
- hanged / hung
- hove / heaved
- if I was / if I were
- kneeled / knelt
- lay / lie / laid / lain
- leaped / leapt
- learned / learnt
- lighted / lit
- may / might
- modal verbs
- participle / participial phrase
- phrasal verbs
- plead / pleaded / pled
- possessive before a gerund
- proved / proven
- raise / rise
- ring / rang / rung
- sank / sunk
- sequence of tenses
- set / sit
- shall / will
- shine / shined / shone
- should of
- showed / shown
- shrank / shrunk
- slay / slew / slain / slayed
- smelled / smelt
- snuck / sneaked
- spelled / spelt
- spilled / spilt
- split infinitive
- spoiled / spoilt
- sprang / sprung
- stank / stunk
- strive / strove / striven / strived
- subjunctive mood
- suppose to / supposed to
- swim / swam / swum
- tense consistency
- thrive / thrived / throve
- transitive / intransitive verbs
- try and / try to
- verb tense with since, if, and wish
- waked / woke / woken
- would of
- wove / weaved
Also covers verbs and verb forms (28)
- affect / effect
- ain’t
- ask as noun
- author as verb
- await / wait
- bring / take
- compare to / compare with
- contact as verb
- convince / persuade
- critique as verb
- differ from / differ with
- DM as verb
- done meaning “finished”
- emigrate / immigrate / migrate
- enthuse / enthused
- gift as verb
- impact as verb
- imply / infer
- incentivize
- interface as verb
- lead / led
- learn / teach
- lend / loan
- like as quotative
- loose / lose
- passed / past
- raise / raze
- wait on / wait for
Modifiers and Comparison
- a / an
- a historic / an historic
- absolute adjectives
- adjective / adverb after linking verbs
- adjective order
- adverb placement
- also / too / as well: placement
- amount / number
- article use with institutions
- articles with geographic names
- bad / badly
- better than any / any other
- comparative and superlative forms
- comparison: as . . . as / than
- count / noncount nouns
- dangling modifier
- double comparative / double superlative
- double negative
- few / a few / quite a few
- fewer / less
- good / well
- hardly / scarcely / barely
- hopefully
- important / importantly
- incomplete comparison
- indefinite article with initialisms
- misplaced modifier
- more importantly
- predicate adjective / predicate nominative
- sentence adverbs
- squinting modifier
- unique and degree modifiers
- zero article
Phrases, Clauses, and Sentence Structure
- as / like
- because of / because
- because / since / as
- both . . . and
- cleft sentences
- correlative conjunctions and parallelism
- deceptively + adjective ambiguity
- dependent clause / independent clause
- double copula / is is
- faulty parallelism
- fragment / complete sentence
- functional shift
- if / whether
- nominalization
- not only . . . but also
- parallel structure
- preposition at end of sentence
- reason is because
- restrictive / nonrestrictive clauses
- since for because
- subordinate conjunction / preposition
- whether or not
Also covers phrases, clauses, and sentence structure (18)
- absolute phrases: comma use
- appositives: comma use
- between each
- comma splice / run-on sentence
- commas between subjects, verbs, objects, and complements
- compound predicates: comma use
- contrasting phrases: comma use
- dangling modifier
- due to / because of
- misplaced modifier
- mixed metaphor
- omitted words: when to use a comma
- parenthetical elements: when to use commas
- participial phrases: comma use
- prepositional phrases: when to use commas
- squinting modifier
- subordinate clauses: when to use a comma
- the fact that / the fact is that